Turtledove
Register
Advertisement
The New Yorker wordmark-1-

The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry published by Condé Nast Publications. Starting as a weekly in the mid-1920s, the magazine is now published 47 times per year, with five of these issues covering two-week spans.

The New Yorker in "News From the Front"[]

The New Yorker was one of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's most tenacious media critics. On December 22, 1941, shortly after the attack at Pearl Harbor, The New Yorker wrote an expose on how woefully unprepared the U.S. Navy had been on December 7.[1] It followed that article with an examination of the missteps at Wake Island on December 29, 1941.[2] On February 9, 1942, it lambasted the War Department for the untested Mark XIV torpedo and its subsequent unreliability in combat.[3] On March 23, 1942, The New Yorker published its last critical article, questioning the administration's claims to have sunk German U-boats and the loss of American ships in the Atlantic Ocean.[4] The New Yorker was shut down by the FBI shortly after.[5]

The New Yorker in Supervolcano[]

When Squirt Frog and the Evolving Tadpoles played in New York, Justin Nachman found a positive review of the band in The New Yorker's "Night Life - Rock and Pop" section. It said, in part "... bring a musical sensibility that mixes Cowboy Bebop with Bebop Deluxe from Oxnard, California, to Manhattan." Aside from the disgust the band felt with being identified with the grimy, working-class town of Oxnard, Rob Ferguson didn't think you could mix animé with a 1970s British band. Instead, the writer was probably trying to be cute.[6]

The review went on to say "Under his Brillo fright wig, lead singer Justin Nachman effectively puts across the up-and-coming band's quirky lyrics." Needless to say, this pleased Nachman who patted his Yiddishe Afro after he read this out loud to the rest of the band and said "Me and Dylan, right?" The band then sassed him back.[7]

The notice also had one line about Snakes and Ladders stating "With them is another California band, Snakes and Ladders, with a distinctive twang". This displeased their lead guitarist Lenny, who tried to perform beyond his abilities and failed.[8] His bandmates were upset with his showboating and this dispute eventually led to that band's break-up.[9]

Ferguson mailed a copy of the review to his father glued to the back of a postcard that showed a big apple with a good-sized, iridescent worm sticking out with a toothy grin and wearing a Yankees ballcap.[10] The cover of that particular issue showed a painting of an entrance to Yellowstone National Park with a volcano erupting (referencing the then current Ranger Lake eruption) and a sign saying the park was closed for the next 1,000 years.[11]

Bryce Miller would optimistically send his poems based on Ancient Greek bucolic poetry to The New Yorker. After they were invariably rejected, he would then market them to magazines that didn't pay except in copies.[12] Marshall Ferguson would do the same with his short stories and with somewhat better prospects but also unsuccessfully. He then did occasionally sell them, in a lesser market, for actual money.[13]

References[]

  1. See, e.g., Atlantis and Other Places, pg. 81-83.
  2. Ibid., pg. 85.
  3. Ibid., pg. 92.
  4. Ibid., pg. 96.
  5. Ibid., pg. 97.
  6. Eruption, pgs. 121-123, HC.
  7. Ibid, pg. 123.
  8. Ibid, pg. 124.
  9. Ibid, pg. 192.
  10. Ibid, pg. 137.
  11. Ibid, pg. 122.
  12. All Fall Down, pgs. 122, HC.
  13. Ibid, pg. 313.
Advertisement